Category: Horse Racing
Aintree Festival and the Grand National
Cheltenham is behind us, and the flat season is officially underway and this weekend we have the last major jumps meeting of the year which is, of course, nations favourite race – The Grand National.
While Cheltenham attracts the more serious and seasoned punter the Grand National is undoubtedly the race that everybody knows and anyone usually has a punt or gets involved in some form or another. That usually throws up some great trading opportunities.
Aintree Festival
The Aintree …
A world cup that is suited to the desert
Saturday sees one of the world’s richest horse races take place at Meydan, the Dubai world cup.
Over the years I’ve moved from dabbling in the Meydan markets to doing them seriously. They often make for a useful addition on a dull Thursday in the UK. Therefore I’d recommend a dabble in these markets if the volume is holding up and there is no clashing with other races. The world cup itself must be one of few where the prize …
The Flat is back
Tomorrow marks the traditional return of the flat turf season at Doncaster.
The end of the footy season is nearing, the Grand National is right upon us and the first Golf Major of the year is almost here. It’s a period of transition.
Transition
At this time of year, we move from the National Hunt season to the Flat season proper. This marks the return of flat racing over the green stuff and that may bring out new horses or …
Trading Cheltenham
It’s Cheltenham and that means that next week we will be treated to some quality racing and expected market turnover of £120m. I can’t wait.
In this post, I have put up plenty of statistics about what will and won’t work at Cheltenham and some comparisons to previous years. Hopefully, this will give you a few points. There is also plenty to help you get stuck into this Cheltenham if you are a Bet Angel user.
Cheltenham trading videos
As …
Preparing for a major race meeting – Cheltenham
Big meetings are generally mean big opportunities for me, so I take a lot of care to carefully prepare for each one. Cheltenham is one of the biggest.
Last year, the big meetings accounted for just short of 20% of my entire year. That’s why I put so much effort into each one. Not only that, while invites are always gratefully accepted, I’m still politely declining them. I intend to do so for as long as is practicable.
Collecting and …
How to win (and lose) £45m in a few minutes
This week in 2011, we were treated to a day of spectacular proportions and this post relives that moment.
Leopardstown
It’s a busy week between Christmas and the New year and once out of the Kempton meeting, we move into a quieter period. But Leopardstown still brings us some quality and is worthy of a look as the week wears on. I’m generally less convinced by other markets but will often trade them if an opportunity presents itself.
The are …
Finding value in malevolent markets
You will be forgiven for thinking that humanity is an outdated concept that should be replaced. But they do say, to err is human. But to completely screw up, you need a computer!
Flash crashes
The stock market was set up to allow companies to raise investment capital from investors. A simple and effective concept that works. But modern financial markets are more like a giant casino. You can still raise funds, but the aftermarket dominates the central purpose. The …
Hennessy Gold Cup – One of my favourite races
I have fond memories of the Hennessy Gold Cup. I’ve traditionally done well at this race and it’s the race I traded live at the IX Investor show for Betfair in 2006. I know I’ve posted this summary, or something similar, before. But it’s definitely one of the highlights of my trading career so far so it’s worth a reprise for those that haven’t seen it before.
Betfair at a financial market expo
Seeing a betting company at a financial …
Melbourne cup – The race that stops a nation and wakes me up!
The Melbourne and I cup go back a few years now. Many moons ago, in the early days of my trading career, I got interested in the ‘race that stops a nation’ and learned that it really did stop the nation; they have a national holiday today in Victoria.
The start, Intrigue and disappointment
In the early part of my career, I completely ignored Australian racing. In fact, I pretty much ignored all overseas racing. So the early part of …
Seasonality in Horse Racing
Still, plenty of racing to look forward to and the champions meeting still to come followed by the restart of Cheltenham, but what happens as we move into the winter?
There are plenty of highlights around at this time and more as we head into the full on jumps season. For some reason, I know it’s named after a horse, the Tingle Creek meeting at Sandown sounds Christmassy to me, but for sure is an early high point in December. …
St Leger meeting
The oldest classic horse race in the world is almost upon us again and while it marks the closing of the flat turf season, tradition dictates that it also marks an upturn in financial markets if folklore is to be believed. “Sell in May and go away, don’t come back till St Leger day”
Come back on St Leger day
There is a general ‘theory’ that during the summer stocks languish and only when everybody is back to their desk …
September Salisbury and it’s importance
Today we have a meeting at Salisbury, that’s not unusual at this time of year. But this meeting has some significance for all traders.
Why it’s an important race
Way back in 2003 Betfair published information on a specific race. Betfair went full disclosure on the race. It listed all the market participants what they did, how much they did, how many accounts were active overall and similar information.
On seeing this publication I just realised that it gave me …
Marmite Monday
It’s that day of the year that you either love or hate. The August bank holiday in the UK brings a whole bunch of racing, all on the same day.
There will be lots of meetings on Monday and about a billion races. This may seem like heaven for some, but it’s a nightmare for others. Quite a few races will attract little liquidity, a lot isn’t of quality and many races will clash meaning that you can’t do much …
Ebor or Ebore?
Summer racing isn’t over quite yet and today kicks of the Ebor meeting at York. I’ve traditionally done OK at this festival each year so I am looking for something above average this week.
The Ebor meeting can yield some good results, but nothing is ever guaranteed and this meeting can be a bit random at times so it’s probably not going to be all plain sailing. It should be better than what we have been seeing recently though.
Traditionally, …
Trading ‘Good-way’
No that’s not a typo! There are two meetings that should get your attention this week.
From a trading perspective, I like multi day high-quality meetings. They usually throw up some good opportunities and are a welcome addition to any month.
Goodwood
As you may know, these higher quality meetings produce extra volume and that can change the characteristics significantly. But don’t let Goodwood fool you into thinking it’s the same as a Royal Ascot or Cheltenham, it behaves very …
Behind the scenes at the home of British horse racing
A few weeks ago I was fortunate to be invited to Newmarket (the birthplace and spiritual home of British horseracing) by a fellow Bet Angel forum member who is an ex-jockey that rode for Sir Mark Prescott for many years.
Newmarket itself is steeped in history and is built around horse racing with approx. 3000 horses stabled across 2500 acres. It is home to most of the UK’s top trainers. The best way to describe it would be to say …
Newmarket July Meeting
The Newmarket July meeting starts today and is a decent highlight on the journey through the Month.
I’ve had mixed results over the years and is the sort of meeting where you want to do well, but you can’t push it as hard as at other meetings. If the opportunity strikes, you can usually make the most of it and get a decent result.
Last year went well, but, in my experience, it’s the sort of meeting where you can’t …
Two card Tuesdays
We have reached the time of year when Monday and Tuesday racing drops to two cards in the afternoon.
The impact of just two race meetings
It’s an important time of year, as this changes the characteristic of these cards to the negative. But also it allows you to do a few other things and skip these cards if needed. Racing tends to be lower quality on a Monday and Tuesday and that combined with the 15-minute gaps in-between the …
Trading Tennis in-clay – When it’s good to see Red
European clay court Tennis, Group Racing at Newmarket, the Grand National behind us; spring is definitely here!
We are now on the cusp of a lot of major sporting action. The Monte Carlo Masters Tennis is a signal to start dusting down things for the French Open. The European clay court season is upon us and it presents us with some decent opportunities.
Tennis – Why Red Clay can equal Green
Clay is an interesting surface for Tennis because of …
There is Light at the End of the Tunnel!
We are now in the middle of February which is historically the poorest and hardest trading month of the year on the pre-race horse racing markets, typically there will only be around £450m traded this month which is around 40% less than the amounts expected as we hit peak season where the monthly volume will of increased to around £750m.
How does this effect thing from a trading perspective?
When trading any market liquidity is key none more so than …
Loadsamoney
I made a post on social media this week about an article that appeared in the Financial Times. I didn’t realise at the time of posting, that in the background there was a mention of a sizeable position then went through the market at Royal Ascot.
I only realised this, when people started questioning it shortly after the post. Asking how it was possible put £125k through a market?
Ordinary or extraordinary?
This wasn’t an ordinary market, though, this was …
Ebor or Ebore?
Summer racing isn’t over quite yet and today kicks of the Ebor meeting at York. I’ve traditionally done OK at this festival each year so I am looking for something above average this week.
The Ebor meeting can yield some good results, but nothing is ever guaranteed and this meeting can be a bit random at times so it’s probably not going to be all plain sailing. It should be better than what we have been seeing recently though.
Traditionally, …
Why Monday’s evenings are great markets
Something snatched my curiosity many years ago about trading the evening racing during the summer.
Anomaly
It always seemed pretty anomalous to me, but I would always feel that I would do well on a Monday evening, But Tuesdays would often be terrible. The rest of the week would vary depending upon the type of races and courses where the evening racing was being held.
Closer examination showed that Windsor was producing consistently above average results. So I came up …
Trading Royal Ascot
And so here we are another year, another Ascot.
Ascot is obviously a big deal and, generally, I target it to be at least the second biggest week of the year. I’ll look to do more in a week than I can normally do in a month, so it’s a significant meeting. Wall to wall, quality racing, from Tuesday till Saturday. You also get the added bonus of lots of drunk people places bets on horses because they like the …
York Dante Meeting
After a successful Chester meeting we roll onto York for the Dante meeting this week.
The York card looks good with plenty of group racing, but the other stuff on the card today looks a little ‘testing’. For a direct comparison look at the prize money. Kempton has a grand total of £18.4k, York £191.5k. I’ll be cautious and use small stakes at the smaller meetings as a result.
As we move through the early part of the flat turf …
Chester May Festival
Chester May festival starts today and it’s a welcome addition to the card, but based upon previous years it’s nothing amazing from a trading viewpoint.
Obviously we all love some extra liquidity that the quality racing will bring, but it’s never been a meeting that I’ve got really good amounts from. By that I mean I’m not banging in three figure results a race. Just the odd one or two a day. The thing to note about Chester is its …
Manic Monday
It’s one of a handful of manic trading sessions you see during the year today.
There are 620 runners on the card today and 54 races. Sounds like heaven, but it can be hell. The markets are just often not strong enough to do anything with. You often get a lot of donkeys out and therefore you end up with some competitive handicaps at the lower end of the scale, but little money and little time to trade them.
If …
How evening racing is different
We have now started the evening racing in earnest and it won’t stop till the end of August. So you have four months to make hay while the sun shines, not forgetting we are in the England, so it won’t shine much.
However, there are at least four different states that you see in racing during this period.
(1) Afternoon racing
This tends to me higher quality than the evening racing and will therefore trade differently.
(2) Evening racing
There …
A day at the races
After many years sat behind the screen. I’ve been making a conscious effort recently, to actually get out and enjoy some of the hard earned. But also I’ve been keen to experience first hand some of the sporting venues I’ve traded.
This was another year when I declined an invite to the Cheltenham Festival, but I made up for it yesterday by attending the racing there. Judging by the weather I picked the right day! I was quite keen to …
Craven meeting
We have just started the Craven meeting at Newmarket. With deference to the TV presenter, it’s not named after him but instead an early supporter of Racing at Newmarket. Yesterday we had the Nell Gwyn an interesting character.
How the Craven trades
I prefer to know whether I’m in a good market or a poor one. But the Craven meeting at Newmarket often sits right in-between that. I know there’s quality there, but in terms of liquidity it often …
Connect
Connect with us on the following social media platforms.